The Hundred Year Tavern
by Lumi75
Summary: Mito-san is the best, this one's for her. Feat.Novu


_Disclaimer: All characters belong to Togashi _

_XXX_

**The Hundred Year Tavern **

Sixteen thousand miles east of Eden, sits Mito's Tavern.

Here, on this pristine, windswept isle…you can forget a hundred years of dressing up, smelling carbon emissions and eating fancy "five-star" food.

Here, lounging on the patio of Mito-san's tavern, enjoying the fading heat of the day, you can watch the shimmering moon creep through the magnificent branches of the elm tree entwined with timber framework of the establishment. You may find, to your surprise, the dinner more delicious, the music better... and drifting on the wind, the voice of a windchime more evocative than you ever thought possible.

Most importantly, you will need no glass-framed portraits when you can hold the ones you love, real, alive and breathing in your hands. So close to you. Mito's place perfectly captures a secret era deep in the childhood of the world.

_A secret of life no Hunter could make – yet they could easily take…_

"What is your secret, Mito-san?" asked the regulars, whose numbers were starting to crowd the hall, just as the rings of the red-crown elm steadily expanded year by year.

"No secret at all, the atmosphere builds with time… like aged wine." Mito would say with a smile on her lips while pouring out a glass for a patron. She had never thought about it, really. There was no secret, was there? Anyone willing dedicate years to the daily scrubbing of pinewood floors, polishing metal artisan lamps and wiping long stem wineglasses could create this deceptively simple, yet opulent and magical atmosphere, just like aged wine, couldn't they?

_Yes….but also no…._

_Possessing was easy.., it was carrying on, year after year even when all seemed lost...that was the hard part.…_

Mito-san was good at keeping on… many things had been lost, and keeping on to her routine day after day was the only thing that kept her sanity when her fiancé and father perished early on in a fishing accident…her mother fell ill and they were forced to sell their house to pay the hospital bills… her beloved sister married and moved away…then tragically died in a Hunter-related incident.

After all that loss, a child unexpectedly came into her life. She remembered her steely voice in the courtroom saying, "Gon is mine. I will provide him with all that he will ever need." The tavern was testament to that love. The warm, cosy interior where he would be nurtured and taught what was really important.

_Keeping it going…._

Yet Gon loved the forest most of all. Disappearing into it for hours…. Longer each time as he grew older. Mito looked at the forest, shrouded by mist and danger...feeling its siren call yet feeling resentful…Yes, Mito ran the tavern to provide for Obaa-san and herself….but deep in her heart she did it for Gon, to provide him with everything he could physically need…

But from the way Gon embraced the wild forests of the hillocks, spending hours fishing, hunting and collecting herbs, Mito-san knew it was only a matter of time before he too, would leave her…

"_Screw Hunters!" _Mito cursed like a fox with one paw caught in a trap.

"Hush, Mito…." Came Obaa-san's warning refrain… "Remember you are his mother, but you cannot be his father…"

"Gon's father is dead!"

"And the mountain is now his father…Mito, my child, Remember, you are his mother, but you cannot be his father…"

Gon's father, the bastard responsible for her sister's loneliness and early death _-- Jin Freaks!_

**The Hundred Year Wine**

Rich burgundy so intense that it was almost black, softly breathing out the scent of sleeping oak, the depths of the wine in Mito-san's glass sent her dreaming…traveling back to the day that the Hunter had stepped through the doorway 12 years ago, seeking shelter from the storm….

_Customer!! _Obaa-san's voice broke through her reverie.

Mito-san took a sharp breath and smoothed her palms down her apron, eyes scanning the hall. She noticed a tourist approaching the bar, a tall, bespectacled man in his thirties dressed in khakis and blessed with athletic beauty. Something about him made Mito-san uncomfortable. A haunted light darted from his glassy eyes like a man whose thoughts were trapped in a bad place far, far away, and nothing could wake him from that nightmare.

"Did your car break down?" Mito-san asked in her sensible, motherly manner. Whale Islanders were friendly like that, even to strangers.

The man studied her and seemed to relax a little. A fragile smile appeared. "My car is fine, thank you. It's my nerves that are completely shot….Are you the owner of this wonderful tavern? Can you give me a job?"

So Mito-san, not knowing that she was speaking to Nuvo, one of the most celebrated Hunters in the world, hired him as a dishwasher.

And what happened next was one of the best things to happen in their lives.

_Fin_

_XXX_

_A/N: Novu is the Hunter from the Chimera Arc whom Palm was obsessed by. He became shell-shocked after infiltrating Mereum's Palace. This is my take on how he went looking for escape from his nightmare and ended up meeting Mito at the bar. Why does Jin Freaks appear? Cuz this was originally supposed to be a one-sided Mito x Jin which digressed. xD;;;_

_Happy New Year in advance! Yoroshiku~~_


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